Centrino Notes Raise the Bar

Tests show top battery life, performance.

Laurianne McLaughlin

Intel's latest notebook technology is more than just a new processor. Called Centrino, it's made up of a CPU, a chip set, and wireless hardware. Judging from our first tests, notebooks with some or all of Centrino's parts are winners, setting new records for performance and battery life.

The only hitch: The convoluted name game surrounding the technology. Intel offers the Pentium M chip (not to be confused with its Pentium III-M and Pentium 4-M predecessors), along with the 855 chip set and the Intel Pro/Wireless 2100 Network Connection hardware. To call a laptop a Centrino, and to reap the benefits of Intel's marketing muscle behind that name, vendors must use all three parts. Notebooks with only the CPU and chip set will carry the Pentium M label. That's the case for the 6.2-pound, $3395 IBM ThinkPad T40 and the 6.5-pound, $2267 Dell Latitude D600 we tried out. We also tested a 7.1-pound, $3500 Toshiba Tecra M1 Centrino model. All three were preproduction units; weights include AC adapter and cord.

Extralong Life

For frequent travelers, a notebook is only as good as its battery life. Our thin-and-light test systems--combined with high-capacity batteries--posted marathon run times. Toshiba's 1.6-GHz Tecra M1 lasted an eye-popping 7 hours, 6 minutes, and IBM's 1.6-GHz ThinkPad T40 an impressive 6 hours, 33 minutes in PC World Test Center battery tests. The 1.6-GHz Dell lasted 3 hours, 15 minutes, but used a significantly smaller battery.

How does Centrino help battery life? For starters, the 1.3-, 1.4-, 1.5-, and 1.6-GHz Pentium M chips draw an average of less than 1 watt of power. (Also offered are 1.1-GHz and 900-MHz versions, which average 0.5 watts.) The older Pentium 4-M processors gobble an average of 2 watts.

Intel also improved its SpeedStep technology, which adjusts the notebook's processor speed according to application need. Plus, its Mobile Voltage Positioning 4 lowers the voltage based on current CPU activity. Finally, Centrino and Pentium M machines use a 400-MHz bus that can power down different sections when they're not in use.

Powerful, Too

Most mobile users don't want to sacrifice performance to get long battery life. That won't be an issue for Pentium M-based notebooks, thanks to a more efficient processor architecture built from the ground up to be a mobile part (Intel's previous mobile chips are reconfigured desktop parts). The Pentium M completes more instructions per clock cycle than today's P4 chips (which favor higher MHz instead), and the new chip has a 1MB Level 2 cache (twice that of the current P4's 512KB L2 cache). The result: Our 1.6-GHz test notebooks earned impressive PC WorldBench 4 scores, outpacing notebooks with faster-running P4 and P4-M processors.

The Dell Latitude D600, the highest-performing notebook we've tested to date, scored 125, a noteworthy 13 points higher than our previous top mobile performer, a 9.5-pound desktop replacement from Toshiba with a 2.5-GHz desktop P4 processor. That's about 12 percent faster, a performance gain any user would notice. The ThinkPad T40 was close behind at 124, and Toshiba's Tecra M1 landed a zippy 111a??notably quicker than a previous P4-M Tecra model, a 2-GHz 9100 that scored a 95. Another comparison system, Gateway's 600XL desktop replacement with a 2.4-GHz P4-M, notched a 107.

In additional tests running processor-intensive applications, the Pentium M notebooks did well with AutoCAD AUGI Gauge, Nero Burning ROM 5.5, and Premiere 6 tasks. The Dell Latitude flew through AUGI Gauge in a cool 251 seconds (the 2.4-GHz P4-M Gateway took 341). The Toshiba Tecra M1 completed the test in 288 seconds, versus 456 seconds for its older sibling, the 9100. The differences between the Pentium M and Pentium 4-M notebooks were not as dramatic in our Photoshop 7.0.1 and VideoWave DivX tests, however.

The Wireless Lowdown

Before you choose your next notebook PC, you need to understand the wireless options--confusing as they may seem. Intel's Pro/Wireless 2100 Network Connection, the third piece of Centrino, provides Wi-Fi-compliant 802.11b connectivity.

But not all notebook makers favor Intel's implementation of 802.11b technology; still others prefer different standards entirely. The corporate-oriented 802.11a standard provides faster connections--up to a maximum of 54 megabits per second, or 20 mbps average, compared with a maximum of 11 mbps, or 6 mbps average, for 802.11b. Unfortunately, the two technologies don't work together.

A third variant of Wi-Fi, 802.11g, delivers the same speed as 11a, but is backward-compatible with 11b.

The IBM notebook we tested has hardware that supports both 11a and 11b. Dell offers Intel's wireless by default, but also has an 802.11g option available at no extra charge.

Despite confusing names and messy wireless standards, early Pentium M-based notebooks show great promise. Excellent battery life and unprecedented mobile performance mean any road warrior should be pleased to travel with one of these laptops.

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Buying Information

Dell Latitude D600 Price when reviewed: $2267

Buying Information

IBM ThinkPad T40 Price when reviewed: $3395

Buying Information

Toshiba Tecra M1 Price when reviewed: $3500